Sunday, August 2, 1998

Former missionary, monk united by shared faith, battle against torture

By Mark I. Pinsky

The Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. - One autumn day in 1974, a decade after arriving in Brazil as a missionary, the Rev. Fred Morris mused with a friend about how they would react if they were interrogated by the military government, like many other Brazilians of the time.

Hours later, they had their answer.

Military officials in the city of Recife carted the men away, stripped them and subjected them to four days of beatings, sleep deprivation, hanging by their arms and electric shocks to various parts of their bodies, including their genitals.

"I was now aware only of a world of agony and torment from which I could not escape," Morris later wrote of the experience. "But the pain was so great and so constant that it had almost ceased to register."

Now the executive director of the Orlando-based Florida Council of Churches, Morris said his Christian faith sustained him throughout the ordeal. He sang hymns and recited the 23rd Psalm. He especially was buoyed by the knowledge - conveyed by one of his outraged tormentors - that a brave Benedictine monk was organizing prayer vigils on his behalf.

That young monk, Marcelo Barros, went further than that. He risked his life to save Morris.

Last week, the two shared their memories of the dramatic event that linked their lives while Barros was in Central Florida to address the Florida Council of Churches.

Barros said he was fully aware of what he was doing in 1974, and why.

"I was quite sure that Fred was being tortured," said Barros, 53, now an author, theologian and the prior of a Benedictine monastery.

"The little thing that we could do was to show the military that we knew what they were doing and, by that, make them responsible for the results."

To save Morris, Barros went to four different army barracks, including the Fourth Army Headquarters where the torture took place, to demand his release.

"It was heroic beyond belief that he would have the courage to do that," said Morris, now 64. "Courageous to the point of being foolhardy," in light of the fact that the U.S.-backed government of Gen. Ernesto Geisel had already "killed more than one priest."

Despite this knowledge, Barros acted.

There are times, the Brazilian said, when "one must demonstrate a willingness to take risks in solidarity.

"I was afraid, but I had to control my fear."

The brother, son and grandson of Methodist ministers, Morris went to Brazil as a missionary in 1964. For the next nine years he helped organize community centers in poor neighborhoods and worked to improve relations between Protestant and Catholic churches.

When he was captured on Oct. 16, 1974, he had taken a leave of absence from missionary work and was volunteering at a community center.

Morris' "crimes," his torturers explained, included his association with the man he talked with that day, Luis Soares de Lima. Unbeknownst to Morris, the man was an underground member of the Brazilian Communist Party.

The military also accused Morris of filing unfavorable stories about the government while working as a free-lance writer for Time magazine and the Associated Press, and later charged that he was a CIA agent.

In particular, the officers were suspicious of Morris' friendship with Recife's Catholic Archbishop Helder Camara.

"Dom Helder," as the cleric was known, "was their No. 1 enemy - they hated him the most," Morris said. "He denounced their use of torture all over the world."

Ironically, Morris' torturers justified what they were doing to him by saying they were "defending Christian civilization against Godless communism."

The Rev. Jim Armstrong, of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, Fla., recalled that support for Morris also came from the United States.

"We applied what pressure we could," said Armstrong, who as a bishop of the Methodist Church had visited Morris in Brazil before his abduction.

As a result of the campaigns in the United States and Brazil, and the forceful intervention of the U.S. ambassador in Brasilia and the consul in Recife, Morris' torture ended after four days. Seventeen days after his arrest, he was deported.

Not surprisingly, Barros' actions forged a lasting, ecumenical bond between the two men. They have cemented their relationship through correspondence and visits over the years to the United States and Brazil.

"Marcelo and I have been closer than brothers for 28 years - in and through the differences of our religious communities - because we have understood throughout that our basic commitment to Jesus Christ and his church is much more important than the many details that would seem to separate us," Morris said.

Barros said the ecumenical work they began 25 years ago gave him the strength to risk his life and the motivation to continue working for that cause in the years since.

"We have felt that the unity we have shared personally as we have worked together over the years on behalf of people is a model for the kind of unity all religious communities should strive for and live out," Morris said.

"And though we are both Christians, we do not see this kind of unity as limited only to Christians. We both share a larger vision of God's activity in the world and see that as including all peoples and all faith communities."

Unlike many subjected to torture, Morris said he has suffered no ongoing traumas.

He credits a combination of factors for enabling him to get beyond the experience: the relatively brief duration of his interrogation, the fact that he had no information to give and the ultimate protection of his U.S. citizenship.

"I think they can break anyone, but they didn't break me because they didn't have time," he said. "I don't have any guilt because I didn't betray anyone."

As a catharsis, Morris said, "I stuck it to the Brazilian government as much as I could" when he returned to the United States.

He wrote articles about his experience for magazines, such as Time, Harper's and Christian Century, and appeared on 26 television programs, including NBC's Today. He takes credit for getting U.S. aid to the Brazilian military cut in 1976, after testifying before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Later Morris learned that two of the people most responsible for his ordeal died within two years of his release, both of prolonged and painful illnesses.

Though the ordeal left him jobless for several years, Morris has no thoughts of getting even with those who tormented him - and says he has forgiven them. But reconciliation is another matter.

"As long as these people think they were doing the right thing, there is no basis for reconciliation," he said. "These people had abdicated their humanity."

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